The next generation of young conservatives is on YouTube

Yes, there are young conservatives, but they’re not at college or watching TV. Instead, they’re working hard and watching conservative YouTube videos.

There’s a young man I’ve known and admired for many years. I met him through one of my children’s activities and quickly sized him up as extremely bright and incredibly hardworking. He also has a brilliant sense of humor; one, moreover, that is perfectly attuned to children. When he left the job through which I met him to start his own business, I didn’t follow him, because doing so would have involved a lot more driving. That was a bad decision because my child’s interest in the activity vanished when the young man left.

It’s been many years since I last saw this man, but I keep up with him on Facebook. He doesn’t post often, but when he does, I’m always blown away. He may be a millennial, but he’s a rock solid libertarian-conservative-classic liberal and he’s not shy about defending his viewpoints. He has a mastery of the issues and will expand upon them if he feels it’s appropriate.

Because I find this young man interesting and his conservativism heartening, I reached out via Facebook to learn a little more about him. He gave me some fascinating information about young conservatives. Here’s what I learned:

My friend believes that young conservatives in his age cohort (people under 40) are much more common than anyone realizes, as evidenced by Trump’s huge victory across America. As far as he’s concerned, the perception that his generation automatically hews Left is a byproduct of the Left’s own self-referential world view in entertainment, media, and the universities, each of which relentlessly promotes and reinforces its own cultural dominance.

Because his job involves teaching skills to young people, my young friend has seen a lot of young people grow up over the years. He therefore sees a trajectory that has them sucked into Leftism through school, and then finding their way out of it again when they hit the real world. He breaks this arc down as follows:

From 15-18, young people are fairly centrist politically and rely on common sense.

From 19-22, young people go “off to indoctrination sleep away camp…. errrr…. I mean University.” There, peer pressure, combined with a system that punishes dissent, pushes them so far Left that they actually view Leftism as a centrist political position.

From 23-25, these kids hit the real world. There, they discover that the real world is unlike anything their education told them it would be. Nevertheless, they are slow to realize what’s going on.

Only after reaching the second half of their twenties do young people start figuring out that they really do live somewhere in the center, and that the whole “institutional racism” issue is not the problem. The problem, instead, is the people relentlessly complaining about “institutional racism.” At this point, it hits them that the far Left isn’t fighting “the man;” it is “the man.”

Fascinating take on things, right? Especially because it comes from someone who lives in the middle of the young demographic.

But here’s the most interesting thing the young man told me: We old people still look at television as a driving force, which is why we’re so exercised by the crap spewed on the major news networks. His generation, however, isn’t really a TV generation, especially for young conservatives, who feel locked out of television. For that reason, young conservatives go someplace entirely different: YouTube. According to my friend, “there is a huge grass roots Conservative-Libertarian-Classic Liberal movement going on now on YouTube and on podcasting formats.”

My friend didn’t pull the adjective “huge” out of thin air. Instead, he offers just one example: A British young man named Carl Benjamin, who puts up videos at YouTube under the name “Sargon of Akkad.” According to my friend, Benjamin’s videos pull in an average of 500,000 views each, and he’s putting them out on an almost daily basis, using only a microphone and editing software. Meanwhile, cable news, despite the myriad minions employed and the huge infrastructure it needs, pulls in only 1.5-2 million viewers each night.

In other words, with minimal overhead, Benjamin alone pulls in about 25-30% the number of viewers all the cable channels do. When you add to Benjamin’s audience the many people who watch Milo, Steve Crowder, and a host of other young conservatives who have found success on YouTube, you’ve got a lot of young people imbibing stuff other than the mainstream media. (It’s probably safe to say that, while there is going to be viewership overlap on these videos, that overlap will not be complete. Many of the viewers can be counted separated.)

To put it in terms we old folk can understand, YouTube has become the young conservatives’ version of Rush Limbaugh. Cast your mind back to the 1980s, when he began to gain his ginormous following from people disenchanted by the big three news outlets (ABC, NBC, and CBS).

Moreover, these young conservatives look to YouTube for the same reason that an earlier generation of conservatives turned off the news and tuned into Rush: instead of stupid sound bytes and packaged stories from airbrushed “personalities,” these video stars do what Rush still does, which is to explain their viewpoints at great length and in great detail. As my friend said of Benjamin, his views are logical, detailed, and perfectly expressed. You may not agree with him, but you know precisely what lies beneath his political and social conclusions.

Incidentally, few of these young YouTubers are conventionally conservative. We know from polls that even conservative young people are more socially liberal than older generation conservatives. Some, indeed, don’t even think of themselves as conservative. They’re more “anti-Left.” Take the British born Benjamin as an example, if this Wikipedia article can be trusted:

To me, Benjamin’s allegiances don’t sound very conservative, but to the Left, he’s alt-Right. No wonder, then, that my young friend identifies these views as “centrist.” In the new political landscape, they are. Having said that, there’s no doubt that most of Benjamin’s views will be more palatable to Trump conservatives than to any Progressives. It’s only when he gets to corporatism that he veers Left, which explains his support for Bernie.

I wish I could explain to these young people that the problem isn’t corporations. Because they believe that corporations are the problem, these people join that angry, old, jaw-boning Marxist Sanders who wants to control corporations.

The reality is that it’s people like Bernie who are the problem, because corporations become toxic when the government starts running them. The moment that happens, it’s in corporate interests to buy government and it’s in politicians’ interests to support the corporations that fund them.

The smart money isn’t on getting corporate money out of politics, because it will always find a way in as long as the government meddles in business. Instead, the smart money is on getting government out of business. Get rid of subsidies. Get rid of overwhelming regulations. Get rid of a labyrinthine tax code that makes it in business’s interests to meddle in politics.

And you know what? That’s precisely what Trump is trying to do by getting rid of one regulation and executive order after another, and with his press to simplify the tax code. The next step is to make it clear that businesses will have to rise or fall based on market merit. Nothing will be too big to fail anymore. No one industry will get government handouts thanks to government favoritism, which is the worst type of market manipulation. But I digress….

The bottom line is that the young conservatives are inventing something that’s not your mother’s conservatism, but that’s definitely not hardcore Leftism either. They hate Social Justice Warriors; they hate man-hating Third Wave feminism; and they acknowledge that unbridled Islamism, especially when you willingly incorporate it into your own country, is a serious problem. I’m on board with all of that. We can do our bit my nudging them towards an understanding of free market capitalism.

A couple of years ago I realized that one of the great things about the United States was that to succeed (which I generally take to mean: do well for oneself and one’s family) it was not necessary to be a noble, to join the government (and rise in power and prominence) or to join the church (again rise in P & P). In the US, being a noble didn’t pay well and as the church has declined it was less and less an option (I’ll ignore the tele-evangelists; where they fit should be obvious later on). It was possible to succeed with a career or employment in business. In fact, for a long time, a career as a government functionary was generally one of the lower paying options.

It’s not a surprise then that the more ruthless, “morally challenged” people would then pursue not an option in government, but in business. As our common grasp on morals has declined to become “if it’s legal, it’s moral” and lawyers are better and better able to find the cracks in the laws, it’s not terribly surprising that “business” has developed a bad name.

One of the reactions to the rampant lawlessness of corporations (my apologies: this is hyperbole, but it does seem to me to be a somewhat common attitude towards business and its corporate (pun!) representatives), is the attempts by the government to legislate good behavior. And so we end up with the surfeit of business regulations.

So we have on the one hand, the evil capitalists out to exploit the common man and the good government employees trying desperately to protect the common man.

Eventually the private sector will no longer be as lucrative as the public sector. Where will the people who want to be successful go? No longer to the private sector. Will they continue to be good people “trying desperately to protect the common man”? I think it highly unlikely. We will end up with something akin to the medieval church: corrupt bureaucrats who can tell a good story, but are only out to feather their own nests.

ymarsakar

Much of that church still exists, and the US government is plenty corrupt and rigged.

Jon Camp

I’m rather fond of “Shoe on Head.” She’s not conventionally conservative…. calls herself a liberal at times, even, but she hates SJW’s and feminists and is quite funny in her takedowns of them. https://www.youtube.com/user/Shoe0nHead

Libby_CO

Very interesting that these YouTubers are so effective with millennials!

The Left is aware of them and striking back. For example, YouTube recently implemented new rules that de-monetize their videos (i.e. no ad revenue). The WSJ wrote an article accusing “PewDiePie” (Swedish vlogger/comedian with *56 million* subscribers) of being a Nazi-supporter, killing his partnership with Disney. And Benjamin/”Sargon of Akkad” is regularly reviled by Anita Sarkeesian. They will keep trying to silence them, but I doubt it will work.

ymarsakar

Oh it will work come 5g internet and various other “upgrades” to a secure hardware environment, which is why there will probably a trans migration from Youtube. Just like MySpace, Facebook, twitter, etc, as the totalitarian controls increase in effect.

Based on my observations, millennials are using their laptops, tablets, and smart phones for all their media needs. Most networks and cable channels have apps, and there is Amazon, Netflix, and Hulu(and probably some I don’t know about). There’s YouTube and YouTube Red (subscription). My adult children regularly follow anime series online. I’m not surprised that this generation is turning to the new media for their information. Their televisions are really just larger computer monitors.

David Foster

Just yesterday talking with a startup CEO who was saying that on-line product reviews are going video, that millennials in particular would rather watch someone giving a review than read it. Personally, I’d much rather read it (unless the product is such that it’s important to see it in action), but he may be right.

ymarsakar

The Video reviews are mostly so the customer can check out the quality of the product, see the packaging, and other miscellaneous details authors and writers usually miss out on.

I often will look up online video reviews of certain products, right before deciding to buy them. The bandwidth on written communication is so low that it is hard to tell a mistake from an oversight from accurate data.

That startup CEO may understand the trend, but he didn’t verbalize the true nature of it. Then again, that’s the job of marketing.

David Foster

I was just summarizing a longer conversation. One of his main points was that a person on a video seems more ‘real’ than a person reflected only through text. This point would have political applicability as well.

ymarsakar

I would phrase “more real” in my lexicon, which is more bandwidth. When the total data output increases, then reality looks more visceral and feels more visceral. Humans commit a significant amount of brain blood oxygen to the visual acuity centers, often times to the expense of everything else (which can be unwise).

ymarsakar

But here’s the most interesting thing the young man told me: We old people still look at television as a driving force, which is why we’re so exercised by the crap spewed on the major news networks.

Television, what is that? The idiot box your father and grandfather’s generation were talking about?

These days, people watch programs on Netflix which is why cable tv is making “bandwidth caps”.

His generation, however, isn’t really a TV generation, especially for young conservatives, who feel locked out of television.

It’s mostly because it is boring, and when it isn’t, it is due to emotional manipulation and crassly crudely constructed psy ops. So some people find out, like me, that I don’t like being psy warred on.

According to my friend, “there is a huge grass roots Conservative-Libertarian-Classic Liberal movement going on now on YouTube and on podcasting formats.”

It’s been on there for awhile now, I have discovered. Generally the sub group communities already exist, but in private forums or by word of mouth alone. When they get a website or some kind of PR or greater outreach, it is usually due to user content, not from the Networks of Propaganda. I do most of my research now a days on youtube, not because I like Google owning it but because a lot of user created content is there. Even though Google tries their best to copyright spam and dmca take down and cater to censorship groups, but there is so much content it is hard to censor even half of it.

You know me, I don’t listen to human bullsh. It takes quite the quality of content to draw my attention for hours on end.

you’ve got a lot of young people imbibing stuff other than the mainstream media.

it is what has become known as the Alt Right vs the Ctrl Left war.

When Sargon of A starts talking about the bible and Jesus, it becomes a snowball rolling into disaster right then and there, especially since the guest he was talking to was about equally as ignorant. Not much content for me to open source mine there, but I discovered where I could mine it.

I wish I could explain to these young people that the problem isn’t corporations.

It’s not so much that they focus on corps as the problem, as they know they can’t do much about the government being the problem. So the only influence they have is economic, and that hits the corp wallet which causes policy changes, often times at a faster rate than if they tried to play the rigged political game. The game is rigged, and there’s so many conspiracy theories and black ops budget cells moving around, that the Tea Party tried to crash into the DC party. Guess what happened to them. Half the things people talk about now with HRC, would have been one of those conspiracy theories they would have laughed out of the room.

They hate Social Justice Warriors; they hate man-hating Third Wave feminism; and they acknowledge that unbridled Islamism, especially when you willingly incorporate it into your own country, is a serious problem.

There’s a difference between their hate and my hate. Their hate derives from wanting to be left alone on a personal level, and they fight merely because their backs are to the wall and they have no escape option. Whereas I see the Left as enemies of humanity, there is no surrender option even if there was an escape option, because in order to save humanity, the enemies of humanity must not only be defeated but they must be wiped from existence from the face of the earth. Now that won’t destroy evil, but it will retard the acceleration to a certain extent, until End Game. And there is an end game to all this, from what my research has discovered.

Servo1969

Here’s a few interesting YouTube anti-Leftist/anti-SJW channels:

Styxhexenhammer666
A fellow whom I find rather odd (he’s really into the occult) but there’s no denying his political observations are usually very insightful.

The Thinkery
Sargon of Akkad’s other channel. These videos are a little more ‘spur of the moment.’

Andywarski
Andy and Chris make some interesting videos. They also interview other YouTube personalities.

Barbara4u2c
A young woman living in L.A. who is a legal alien from Slovenia. She really doesn’t have much patience for Feminism or SJWs.

Stefan Molyneux
A really intelligent fellow who, although not a Millennial himself, is highly regarded by many Millennials and often takes calls from them asking for advice.

Computing Forever
A channel from Ireland by a man named Dave Cullen. His videos are usually very intelligent.

Undoomed
A channel run by an anonymous man which is “Dedicated to Exposing Stupidity Everywhere.” Regularly takes SJWs and Leftists out behind a sarcastic and snarky woodshed and beats them.

Youtube was the method of transmission in which Germans and UK girls and boys, who were victimized and who witnessed the victimization of Islamic rape jihad in their cities, transmitted their stories, testimonies, and evidence to those across the sea like me who knew where the propaganda to ignore was.

As for the occult, you would probably get some interesting views from my research and probably NeoWayland’s views too.

Leah Kabaker

I learned about these young You Tubers from Dave Rubin, who is in his 40’s so not a millennial. He has an amazing You Tube channel, I find it easier to listen as a podcast, then I’ll go back and watch a few minutes to see what the guest looks like. He interviews all ages, but has had many of these young people on. Sarkon is just one of many. Also interesting note, the kids in High school right now will probably be more conservative – growing up during the recession we’ve had. The anti-establishment is moving to the right and so are they. Will be fascinating to watch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3FNLhdG6E4

ymarsakar

Rubin and Sargon I knew on youtube a few years ago. They look much like Glenn Reynolds in personality, also like Stefan Molyneux.

Tonestaple

About that “self-referential world view in entertainment, media, and the universities, each of which relentlessly promotes and reinforces its own cultural dominance,” it’s terribly important that those of us who live in geographical bubbles to remember that we ought not believe a single, solitary thing we read or see in the news unless we can verify it from two more independent sources. It’s not easy to do. Mostly I find I can discount everything about politics simply because the people who write for the news don’t understand human nature at all.

I look forward to checking out some of the YouTube pages the other commenters have listed.

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